This is a sponsored post with Capital One Shopping. All opinions are 100% our own.
Who doesn’t want to save money? If you ask someone about their financial goals, saving money will be at the top of the list.
Personal finance is a hard topic and many people want tips on how to save money fast.
A surprising amount of Americans don’t have any savings at all, which is worrying if any emergencies or situations arise.
Without any savings, people can hit hard times and stumble into financial troubles fast.
Saving your money is important if you want to move forward financially and work towards your life goals.
Let’s look at the best ways to save money on a tight budget to get you on your way!
15+ Ways On How to Save Money Fast
Save Money By Reducing Your Spending
It may sound obvious, but if you are trying to save money, you really need to reduce your spending.
Our top tips will get you started and help you reduce your costs by paying less!
Create A Budget – And Stick With It!
The first place that you need to look at is your budget and use it to save more money by making small alterations to your life.
A budget is essentially made up of your income and fixed and variable expenses, then making a plan for the money that’s leftover.
Here are a few different ways that you can track your purchases and expenses:
Budget Template
One of the easiest ways to start tracking your monthly spending is with a simple monthly budget template. There are plenty of options out there you just have to find one that works best for you.
Budget Planner
We actually created The Budgeting Binder with our readers and it’s helped tens of thousands of families take complete control of their finances.
Spreadsheet
Are you a Microsoft Excel fan or Google Sheets?
The best thing about using a spreadsheet is that it will automatically update as you enter your numbers. It’s quick and accurate, with only a little effort on your end.
Personal Capital
We love Personal Capital because it gives a great overview of your finances so that you can see everything that’s going on. Once you start saving, they also have a 401(k) Analyzer to review your retirement funds.
Mint
Mint is another great program for budgeting online. It shows you a spending analysis with all your transactions, gives you bill reminders (like that pesky credit card bill!), and you can easily monitor your credit.
Use Capital One Shopping
We recommend using Capital One Shopping if you want to save some money fast.
Capital One Shopping is a free browser tool that searches for and applies coupon codes for you when you shop online.
It compares prices when you shop on Amazon, Target, and more so that you can be sure you’re getting the best available deal – even comparing shipping fees and membership prices.
You won’t just get a good deal on the items you buy, the shipping fees can be a big saver for buying online!
Even if there are no discounts available, you can still earn rewards on your purchase. With Capital One Shopping, you earn Capital One Shopping Rewards that you can redeem for gift cards at select retailers.
Eat at Home
When you review your purchases, you’ll most likely find that a lot of your money is going towards food. People spend over $200 monthly on eating out!
This is a huge tip for how to save money fast- $200 monthly will really add up per year!
Eating at home doesn’t mean you can never eat out again, but it can be a temporary thing to meet your financial goals.
Eating at home is cheaper than eating out because you won’t be charged for restaurant overheads!
You can also try companies such as Hello Fresh and $5 Meal Plan to help you out, where you can still eat at home but make it easier.
Buy Only Necessities
If you want to know how to save money fast, you need to know what you need and what you don’t.
You need to make sure that you are only buying the necessities and not increasing your costs on wants!
When deciding what your necessities are, it’s a real-time talk about what you really need to live or what you want to live with.
For example, utility bills often entail necessities- but do you need cable or a big TV? Do you need the fastest internet connection available?
As hard as it may be to cut back on things that you’re used to, just remember that this only needs to be temporary to work toward your goal of saving money fast.
Cut Back on Subscriptions
This is one of the first places you need to check for how to save money fast on a low income.
You have utility bills, gym memberships, streaming services, and so much more that could be reduced.
I know for a fact that many people still have cable, which costs upwards of $300 per year!
We tend to sign ourselves up to a bunch of different things, only to fizzle out our use of them over time. They become unused subscriptions that are wasting your money!
How many streaming services do you actually use routinely? Do you really use the gym often enough to warrant paying for the membership?
Go through your bills and see if there’s anything that you can cut back on for now- you can always sign up again later on.
If you don’t have time to do this yourself, there are services out there that can do it for you.
Trim
You can sign up to Trim to quickly reduce your subscriptions. It’s an AI assistant that goes through your bills subscriptions and direct debits to see if there are any that can be canceled.
Billshark
Billshark works in much the same way – going through your bills to see if there is anything that they can cancel for you.
Price Shop Around
Whenever you make a purchase, you must try to get the best price for it. Take advantage of online advertising for stores and plan how much money you want to spend.
You can find good deals online and cut costs getting what you need.
Save Money By Making More Money
Bear with us here – but you can save faster by making more money! It’s a no-brainer, but you can use your free time to work a few extra hours for more cash on the side.
Get Cash from Your Hobbies
When you want more money, a good place to start is to look at what you are already doing – and see if you can make money from your hobbies.
Finding Flea Markets/Thrift Store Treasure
Do you like to spend your time at places like flea markets or thrift stores? If you already enjoy doing this, then turn your hobby into money!
I don’t know about you, but I love going to a good thrift store to find some interesting knick-knacks or cheap necessities. I have to refrain from buying too much at the shop, but you’ll be able to make cash reselling what you find!
You could buy vintage finds and sell them on sites such as Etsy. Or get into the business of flipping – where you buy something for a low price and then sell it on for more.
We recommend checking out our friends at Flea Market Flipper, who do this full-time and teach how you can do the same.
Photography
If you are a budding photographer then making money from your photos is something that you should really think about doing.
Photographers are generally paid well, especially if you focus on niches like weddings or families.
Find the Perfect Side Hustle
There’s no such thing as the “perfect” side hustle – or we’d all be doing it! That being said, there are some side hustles that you can do that could be perfect for you.
Youtube
Youtube is a great side hustle because you are in complete control. You can talk about anything you want, and upload as many times as you want.
You can make money on Youtube with ads, but you can make more if you put out some of your own products and use affiliate links.
Tutoring
If there is a particular subject that you enjoy, you could offer this as a subject that you can tutor other people in.
Or you could do something like teaching English to kids in other countries, using a company like VIPKid to do so.
Social Media Management
There are so many different social media platforms out there, and they are a lot of fun to use.
If you know your way around sites like Instagram and Tiktok, you could offer your skills in social media management.
This job would include things like creating graphics, uploading posts, scheduling, replying to comments and messages.
Get Richer Selling Clutter
When you want ways to save money fast, the first step to take should be looking at what you already have and can sell for more cash.
Who doesn’t have a junk drawer? Or maybe a junk closet that has boxes to go!
Go through your closet, garage, or whole house! See if there is anything to sell that’s just sitting around.
We recommend starting with free listing sites like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist.
Make More Money from your 9-5
When we think about ways that we can make more money, we usually head straight into thinking about extra stuff that we can do.
But why not start getting more money from your regular job? We often forget to ask for a pay raise when we deserve it!
There’s never been a better time than now to ask for fair compensation for all the hard work that you do.
Start Investing
You may be wondering what we mean when we say to start investing to save money – on the surface, it doesn’t seem to make much sense, right?
When you want to increase your savings, especially long term, the easiest way to save quickly is to use the money that you already have.
Investing the money means that it will keep growing, thanks to compound interest, and you don’t need to work as hard for the money you’re accumulating.
Betterment
Betterment is an investing platform that is known as the top robo-advisor site. This means that your investments will be managed for you, based on your requirements.
They look at your requirements and invest across 12 different asset classes for you, which are:
They will look at your goals and divide your investment across 12 asset classes (within the standard portfolio).
The fees are reasonable as well – on their standard account there is a $0 minimum balance and a 0.25% management fee.
Robinhood
You’ve probably heard all about Robinhood– it has recently taken off as a very popular investment app, largely because they offer commission-free trading.
There are some services on there that you have to pay for if you want to choose them, such as Robinhood Gold, which is $5.
Robinhood is an app that’s best for people who are interested in trading and may not be the one you choose to go for if you are trying to invest for the long term.
M1 Finance
M1 Finance is an automated investing platform that has no commissions and focuses on asset balancing.
You can create your own “pies” to get started, then sit back and let M1 handle everything. It’s great for those who want to set it and forget it!
M1 Finance could be a great tool for new investors, but they definitely need to make sure they are comfortable investing with no hand-holding. You have to do your research and have your investment goals figured out for this platform to run smoothly.
Save Money By Living Frugally
It goes without saying that you need to spend as little as possible to save extra money. But what’s the best way to do that? Living frugally, of course!
Avoid Lifestyle Creeping
Have you heard about lifestyle creep? Lifestyle creep is pretty common, but something that we want to avoid.
Lifestyle creep (also known as lifestyle inflation) is where you start to spend more when you earn more money and view past luxuries as new necessities for your standard of living.
This tends to happen when you get paid more income, and where you could save, instead you increase your spending- both on things you think you need or just things your want.
You will need to try and keep your spending the same, even when you have an increase in income – if you want to reach your goals.
Downsize Your Home
Bear with us here – this is one of the more extreme ways of saving, but if you want to make a big difference quickly, this will certainly do that!
Downsizing your home means selling your current property and buying a smaller/cheaper one instead – or moving from your current rented accommodation to a cheaper place.
Typically, smaller places will be cheaper, which is what you will be going for. That doesn’t mean that you need to cram your family into a tiny one-bedroom apartment, but rather think about if you need a huge house with lots of unused rooms.
Keep Receipts – Make Returns!
It’s all too easy to proclaim that we’ve spent a bunch more than we should have, and then proceed to not even attempt to return any of them.
Honestly, this is such an easy step but people avoid it! They find returning items to be awkward or annoying. Some people think it’s an extra hassle and not worth the time.
But you need to remind yourself that you would rather have money in your bank account than an item you don’t want.
Keep all of your receipts and make sure to take note of the latest date that you can return them. Get that cash back!
You can also use your receipts on cashback apps such as Ibotta and Ebates.
Comparison Shopping
Think of it like this – marketers count on the fact that we are lazy. Yes, we said it! Humans are inherently lazy, which spells trouble when it comes to saving money.
We need to take some extra time to make sure that we are getting the best deal for the item that we are buying – and we don’t just mean random little purchases either.
One of our favorite browser extensions that helps us save money online is Capital One Shopping. This extension instantly looks for the lowest price seller on Amazon and applies coupons as checkout.
You can install Capital One Shopping here and start saving today!
Insurance
Everyone needs insurance- car insurance, house insurance, health insurance, pet insurance- the list goes on!
But with all those options for insurance, are you paying too much? Have you found good combo policies for car insurance and house insurance?
We don’t mean that you should cancel any insurance that you have (please don’t!) but you need to shop around to check that you get the best price.
Our favorite place to shop for the best insurance rate is Policy Genius.
Bank Account
Saving is easier when you save money somewhere where you will get good interest rates.
Some banks offer cash as an incentive for switching to them – which is a great way to get some extra cash in.
Rethink Sales and Special “Discounts”
When you are trying to save money fast, it’s important to be aware of the marketing that goes into getting you to spend money when you don’t need to.
It can be as simple as ads at the grocery store- the name-brand cereal and other items are still probably more expensive despite the “sale.”
Sales and special discounts are usually set up to encourage you to spend and to spend more than you usually would.
If you are going to buy something in a sale, make sure that you have a clear plan of what you want to buy, before browsing.
Save Money By Living Smart
There are certain things that you can do in your life to make things easier, and this financial advice will help you in the long run.
Reduce Your Debt
When you are working on personal finances, a key area in which you need to pay off debt.
When you have debt, you pay back the money you borrowed with interest on top. Some rates are extremely high and make it harder to pay off your debts.
Reducing your debt means that you will pay less money towards interest, which means that you will be saving more over time.
Start by writing out all of the debt that you have, with the lenders and the interest rates, to put together a plan for reducing it.
There are a couple of popular debt payoff methods that we recommend checking out, called The Debt Avalanche Method and The Debt Snowball Method.
Use a Savings Account
Having a separate savings account is always one of the best ways to save extra money.
When looking for the best savings account for you, make sure that you look at the different available rates that they will give you on your money.
It may not seem like it will make that much of a difference (as the interest rates are very small) but it means that you can save even more money over time.
We recommend checking out a bank like CIT Bank for an account with decent interest rates.
Put Spending Limits on Your Credit Card(s)
Did you know that you can put limits on your credit cards? You can’t overspend if you set certain limits on your cards, which will save you money on every purchase.
Check out a service like N26 where you can set your limits and even whether you want to use an ATM on particular days (to prevent further purchases!).
Enjoy Affordable Staycations – Have Fun at Home!
A great way to save and still do the things that you enjoy is to switch to staycations for the time being.
So many of us haven’t really explored our local area, and this is the perfect chance to do so.
You could go camping or stay with friends and keep your family vacation as cheap as possible.
Key Takeaways
When it comes to figuring out how to save money fast, we hope that you have thought of some new, good ideas.
It’s always important to remember that if you are saving money for something, in particular, you may need to make some big changes to get there – but it only needs to be temporary.
When we think about the things that we need to cut out of our life we tend to focus on the negatives, instead of reassuring ourselves that we can restart anything we want.
There are numerous hacks for how to save money fast, and we recommend that you try out a quick win today such as using Capital One Shopping’s browser extension.